Profiting, however, by the interruption in the battle, the Vizier had reformed his line, brought up infantry from the trenches, and now directed his attack upon the Poles and the most formidable of his opponents, hoping by their overthrow to change the fortune of the day, while the Imperialists and Saxons still halted before his entrenchments at Döbling. The Turks advanced with courage. For a moment a regiment of Polish lancers were thrown into confusion, and the officers, members of the nobility of Poland, who strove to rally their lines, fell; but Waldeck, moving up his Bavarians from the centre, restored the fight. The attack was defeated, and advancing in turn the headlong valour of the Poles drove the Turks back from point to point, over the Alserbach and its branches upon the confines of their camp. To relieve the pressure upon the right and centre, Lorraine had renewed his attack with the left of the allies. Horses and men had recovered breath and order, and their artillery had moved up in support. The defiles of Döbling were cleared by the Saxons; and at about four or five o'clock the Turkish redoubt before Währing was carried by Louis of Baden with his dismounted dragoons. Falling back in confusion upon their approaches and batteries, the Turks desperately endeavoured, too late, to turn the siege guns upon the enemy, whose advance now threatened them upon all sides. The caution of Sobieski had, up to the last moment, inclined him to respect the superior numbers and the desperation of his foes, and to rest content with the advantage won; but now, in the growing confusion, he saw that the decisive hour had arrived. The Elector of Bavaria and the Prince of Waldeck hastening from the centre already saluted him as conqueror.
The desperate efforts of the Vizier to gain room by moving troops towards his left from the centre, and so extending his lines beyond the Polish right, served but to increase the confusion. The Field-Marshal Jablonowski covered that wing, and the Queen of Poland's brother, the Count de Maligni, pushing forward with infantry, seized a mound, whence his musketry fire dominated the spot where the Vizier stood. The last shots were fired from the two or three cannon which had kept pace with the advance. A French officer rammed home the last charge with his gloves, his wig, and a packet of French papers. Already the roads to Hungary were thronged with fugitives, whose course was marked by dust in columns, when the king decided to seize the victory all but in his grasp already. Non nobis, non nobis, Domine exercituum, sed Nomini Tuo des gloriam, he cried in answer to the congratulations of his friends, as he began the decisive movement.
Concentrating as rapidly as possible the bulk of the cavalry of the whole army, German and Polish, upon the right wing,[23] he led them to the charge, directly upon the spot where the Vizier with blows, tears, and curses, was endeavouring to rally the soldiers, whom his own ill-conduct had deprived of their wonted valour. The Turkish infantry without pikes, their cavalry without heavy armour, were incapable of withstanding the shock of the heavy German cuirassiers, or of arresting the rush of the Polish nobles, whose spears, as they boasted to their kings, would uphold the heavens should they fall. Their king at their head, they came down like a whirlwind to the shout of "God preserve Poland." The spears of the first line were splintered against the few who awaited them, but their onset was irresistible. Spahis and Janissaries, Tartars and Christian allies alike went down before the Polish lances, or turned and fled in headlong confusion. The old Pasha of Pesth, the greatest of the Turkish warriors in reputation, had fled already. The Pashas of Aleppo and of Silistria perished in the melée. "Can you not help me?" cried the Vizier, turning to the Khan of the Crimea. "No," was the reply; "I know the King of Poland well, it is impossible to resist him; think only of flight."[24]
Away through the wasted borders of Austria, away to the Hungarian frontier, to their army that lay before Raab, poured the fugitives. There seldom has been a deliverance more complete and more decisive. The terror which had so long weighed upon Eastern Christendom was dissolved in that headlong rout. It was more than the scattering of an army; the strength of an empire was dissipated on that day. Resources which had been accumulating for years were destroyed; and such an expedition, so numerous and so well furnished, never was sent forth by the Ottoman again. The victory lacked nothing to render it more striking, either in suddenness, in completeness, or in situation. The whole action had been comprised in the hours between sunrise and sunset, before the gates of one of the greatest capitals in Europe. We may borrow indeed the words of Eugene, used in his despatch describing the last victory of the war at Zenta, to picture the last hours of that evening before Vienna. For upon the summits of the Weiner-Wald, whence the allies had descended that morning to a yet doubtful field, "the sun seemed to linger, loath to leave the day, until his rays had illumined to the end the triumph of the glorious arms" of Poland and "of the Empire."
There was no want of individual courage among the Turks. "They made the best retreat you can conceive," wrote the king, for hard pressed they would turn sword in hand upon their pursuers. But the head which should have directed that courage was wanting; and for that want they were a gallant mob, but no longer an army. Grateful for the result though we may be, there is something pathetic in the magnificent valour of a race of soldiers being frustrated by such incapacity. The Christians, exhausted by the toils of the last few days, could not pursue to any distance. The Imperial General Dünewald indeed with a few squadrons of Austrians and Poles, the stoutest steeds or the keenest riders, despising both plunder and fatigue, pushed straight on through the twilight to Enzersdorf, where the road crossed the stream of the Fischa, ten miles from Vienna, and there bursting on the line of flight made a slaughter of the fugitives, which showed how much they owed to the night and to the weariness of their conquerors. But there was no general pursuit on the part of the allies. Their commanders were doubtful of the full extent of their victory, and feared lest from such a multitude some part might rally and destroy the too eager followers whom they still outnumbered. But without pursuit their work was done. At seven, Louis of Baden had opened a communication with the besieged, and the garrison sallying forth joined the relieving army in the slaughter of the Janissaries who had remained, neglected or forgotten, in the trenches. Even then one miner was found, doggedly toiling in his gallery beneath the ramparts, ignorant of the flight or death of his companions; perhaps from among so many the last staunch soldier of the Prophet.
I cannot conceive, wrote Sobieski, how they can carry on the war after such a loss of matériel. The whole of the artillery of the Turks, their munitions, and their baggage were the spoil of the victors. Three hundred and ten pieces of cannon, twenty thousand animals, nine thousand carriages, one hundred and twenty-five thousand tents, five million pounds of powder are enumerated. The holy standard of the Prophet had been saved, but the standard of the Vizier, mistaken for it, was sent to the Pope by the conqueror, while his gilded stirrups were despatched at once to Poland to the Queen, as a token of victory. Never, perhaps, since Alexander stood a victor at Issus in the tents of Darius, or the Greeks stormed the Persian camp at Platæa, had an European army entered upon such spoil. Much money had been saved by the Turks in their flight; but precious stuffs and jewelled arms, belts thick with diamonds, intended to encircle the fair captives of Vienna, the varied plunder of many a castle of Hungary and of Lower Austria, were found piled in the encampment. In the Vizier's quarters were gardens laid out with baths and fountains, a menagerie, even a rabbit warren. His encampment alone formed a labyrinth of tents, by itself of the circumference of a little town, and with its contents declared the character of its late owner. An ostrich, previously taken from an Imperial castle, was found beheaded to prevent recapture. A parrot, more fortunate, escaped upon the wing. The Polish envoy was discovered in the camp in chains, forgotten during the turmoil, and thus saved from the death promised him if his master should take the field. The Imperial agent at the Porte, Kunitz, had escaped into the town during the battle; but the mass of Christian captives had not been so happy. Before the battle the Vizier had ordered a general massacre of prisoners, and the camp was cumbered with the bodies of men, women, and children, but for the most part of women, foully slaughtered. The benevolent energy of the Bishop of Neustadt, above-mentioned, found employment in caring for five hundred children, who had, with their mothers in a few cases, escaped the sword. The night was passed in the camp by the victors, who were intent on securing their victory or their plunder. Not till the following morning did the king meet Lorraine and exchange congratulations upon their success. Then, with the Commandant Starhemberg, they entered the city, passing over those well-contested breaches, which but for them might have been that day trodden by the Janissaries. They repaired to the churches for a solemn thanksgiving. Sobieski himself sang the Te Deum in one of them. Nothing could exceed the enthusiastic gratitude of the people, who barely allowed a passage to the horse of their deliverer. The priest, after the Te Deum ended, by a happy inspiration or plagiarism, gave out the words, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John."[25] A salute of three hundred guns proclaimed the victory far and wide, and the shouts of "Vivat Sobieski!" that filled the city out-thundered the thunder of the cannon. Their walls were a chaos, their habitations a ruin, but the citizens rejoiced as those rejoice whom the Lord hath redeemed and delivered from the hand of the enemy. They were as men released not only from the sword, pestilence, and famine, but from prison besides. They poured forth to taste again the sweets of liberty, wondered at the trenches, or joined in the pillage of the camp, where the air was already sickening from the thousands of the slain, and foul from the refuse of the barbaric encampment. But amid all the popular rejoicing, the king could not but observe the coldness of the magistracy. The Emperor could not endure that any but himself should triumph in Vienna, and his feelings were reflected in his servants. On hearing of the victory he had returned to the neighbourhood of the city. A council was held to settle the weighty point as to how the elective Emperor was to receive the elective King. "With open arms, since he has saved the Empire," said Lorraine; but Leopold would not descend to such an indecorum. He strove to avoid a meeting with the deliverer of his capital, and when the meeting was arranged could barely speak a few cold words in Latin, well answered by Sobieski, who, saying, "I am happy, Sire, to have been able to render you this slight service," turned his horse, saluted, and rode away. A few complimentary presents to Prince James and to the Polish nobles did not efface the impression of ingratitude. The German writers minimize the coldness of the Emperor, but Sobieski was at the moment undoubtedly aggrieved, and others were discontented.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] The Turkenschanze, traces of which lately remained.
[21] In 1717 Eugene, in like case with the Vizier now, was besieging Belgrade, and was himself surrounded by a large Turkish army. However, he defeated the relieving army and took the city.